- Jane Akre
Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson are former employees of
Fox owned-and-operated stationWTVT in Tampa, Florida. In 1997, they were fired from the station after refusing to include knowingly false information in their report concerning theMonsanto Corporation's production ofRBGH , a drug designed to make cows produce more milk than what is natural. They successfully sued underFlorida 's whistle blower law and were awarded a US $425,000 settlement by jury decision. However, Fox appealed to an appellate court and won, after the court declared that the FCC policy against falsification that Fox violated was just a policy and not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle blower law did not apply.The court agreed with WTVT's (Fox) argument "that the FCC's policy against the intentional falsification of the news -- which the FCC has called its "news distortion policy" -- does not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102. [...] Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102, Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute." [New World Communs. of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231(2003)]
In 2001, Jane Akre and her husband won the
Goldman Environmental Prize as a recognition for their report on RBGH. [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jane_Akre_and_Steve_Wilson&redirect=no]In 2004, Fox filed a
US$ 1.7 million counter-suit against Akre and Wilson for trial fees and costs.In 2007 Jane became the editor-in-chief of the national news desk at InjuryBoard.com [http://www.injuryboard.com] .
References
External links
* [http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/ The Media Can Legally Lie] : summary story
* [http://www.foxbghsuit.com foxBGHsuit] : website about the case and their biographies.
* [http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/] : InjuryBoard.com National News Desk featuring Jane Akre.
* [http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=-9007907615315517199&hl=es] : "The corporation" movie about the case.
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